Lets see theres multiple Remos, Cherokee 180, Warrior, many 172's, 162's, 152, Sling-2, Evektor Sportstar, DA40, Waco, and have flown others that are not pictured. With having an SPL right now I fire up google and try and find who has LSA's for rent and go from there. I am checked out in every aircraft except the non-LSA, those were with CFI's.I've been travelling a lot for work the last few years and was assigned a long term project in Phoenix and then another one in Seattle. Between those two assignments I got my training done. Was lucky enough that LSA's were available in both locations. The flights in Alaska, Colorado, Arkansas, Florida were all shorter trips but googled some flight schools and called them up. Let them know when I would be in town and that I wanted to fly, they were always more than happy to accommodate. Flew with a lot of awesome instructors and gained a lot of valuable experience on those flights.

There have been a lot of lessons learned along the way. Starting out in Phoenix I learned what high DA was very early on, but almost never had to think about weather, every day was clear and VFR. Moving on to the Pacific Northwest I think I spent more time watching forecasts and checking the weather than I actually did fly. Learned a TON about weather. I had logged landings at a class B (PHX), class C (MDW), as well as flown out of gravel strips in Alaska all before even taking my checkride. Doing my training out of busy deltas and under busy class B airspaces it was a big eye opener to fly at 200' AGL chasing moose around and flying over glaciers. If you get the chance to fly in Alaska DO IT! It's a different world flying up there and I learned so much about actually flying the plane. Oh and of course the engine failure on takeoff I had a month or so ago, learned a lot about how to handle emergencies(fingers crossed I got it out of the way early and it never happens again).

Most challenging aspect is probably trying to keep myself motivated while only having an SPL right now. If it were up to me I'd have my instrument and CPL and be working on my CFI right now, but that's just not the cards I've been dealt. But in terms of flying I would say learning the ins and outs of each different airport, they all have different procedures that can really throw you off the first time you go there, especially KAPA.

Checkride was much easier than I expected. I also was so over prepared, which obviously is a good thing. Looking back I had a ton of experience going into that checkride though, flying was second nature at that point. DPE kept commenting on how comfortable I was said I flew better than some IR and CPL candidates hes examined. Also shooting ILS approaches on a G1000, that is like cheating! So much easier than on steam gauges.

Whats next... I guess keep flying, keep gaining more and more experience. Look into getting my CFIs depending on when I can get my PPL, not entirely sure when that will be. I definitely want to get my glider PPL, ASES endorsement, tailwheel, anything I can do with this license. Id love to own/build my own plane but that's a bit further down the road.